Business Blasphemy
Sarah Khan, Business Advisor and Leadership Consultant, is calling B.S. on the hustle-focused status quo of business and entrepreneurship, and getting real about what it takes to grow a business or career and NOT become a statistic. In each episode, Sarah helps navigate the rampant B.S. that permeates business strategy, marketing, operations, and mindset that has business owners hustling and pivoting themselves into burnout. She cuts through the noise and gives you guidance on how to view the status quo with a more discerning eye. If you're ready for success without the B.S., buckle up for hard truths, fun rants, terrible puns and (more than) the occasional curse word.
Business Blasphemy
EP103: Not Everyone Deserves a Mic: Why Thought Leadership Isn’t a “Vibe”
Thought leadership has become a buzzword — and frankly, it's losing all meaning.
In this episode, I call out the watered-down nonsense parading as thought leadership in online business. I break down what true thought leadership actually requires: originality, courage, and conviction. You’ll hear the difference between being an expert, an authority, and a true thought leader, and why people should stop chasing the title and start doing the work.
I wrap with three actionable steps to grow your authority today, and a warning for anyone mistaking visibility for value.
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Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello blasphemers. All right, let's get real. Okay, in the online business space, it's not enough to be an expert or an authority anymore. Now you have to be a thought leader.
Speaker 1:Everyone wants to be a thought leader, and the problem is most people already think they are one, because apparently all it takes now is a Canva carousel, a $27 ebook and a personal story with a mildly traumatic twist. Throw on the words authenticity and alignment and like what? Suddenly you're leading thoughts. No, you're regurgitating the same bullshit as everyone else, just in a moderately different wrapper. Here's the conversation no one is having, and I am so pissed that nobody's having this conversation. Thought leadership is not a title you give yourself, it's not a brand aesthetic, it's not a vibe, it's a responsibility, it's a level of status not everyone can or is meant to achieve, and it requires original thinking, contextual understanding and the guts to say things that actually challenge people to think. Hence the thought part of thought leadership. Right, most of what's being sold right now as thought leadership is just regurgitated nonsense. People are mistaking moderately controversial, hot takes, pokey content as thought leadership. They're not saying anything new. They may just be saying the same shit as everyone else, but in a different way, and a lot of people are. People are also mistaking content volume for intellectual value. And here's the thing repeating someone else's message in your own words isn't leadership. It's actually just academic plagiarism with better lighting.
Speaker 1:Let me give you an example. I think I've been pretty clear on what this podcast is about, right? And yet every fucking week I'll get three to four cold pitches in my inbox from people wanting to be guests or pitching guests on their behalf. The pitch is always the same as everyone else's. Oh, I show people how to make six figures or I help you get more clients, but I do it with my special methodology and it's all the same outcome, but their story is different. And I get it. That's fine, that's business. That's what we all do. We all offer the same, like half dozen services. That's not the problem. We all have our own special sauce and methodologies. That's not the problem. We all have our own stories. That's not the problem.
Speaker 1:The problem is that's not thought leadership. I do it with my framework. That's not thought leadership. I do it with this particular angle. That's not thought leadership. I have 11 million followers. That's not thought leadership. Oh my God, it's not thought leadership.
Speaker 1:Not only are they pitching the same as everyone else, but when I push and say okay, cool, how does what you do differ? How is it changing the niche or the industry? How does it make people stop and go? Oh, wait a minute, huh, that's interesting. When I ask those questions, not one single person has come back and said here's how. Not one, not a single one, because the reality is very few people can articulate that part. In fact, when I first started shifting my own business last year, I was told by my coach to make thought leaders. That was what my coach told me to do and honestly, I really struggled, because you can't call yourself a thought leader. I've always known that you can't. Other people have to see you as one, but I think that we've had so few true thought leaders over the years. A lot of people don't really know what constitutes a legitimate one.
Speaker 1:Now, thought leadership isn't safe, and that's kind of the point. Right, thought leadership should make people uncomfortable. It should challenge the status quo, not just be intentionally controversial to get people to feel some kind of way. That is not thought leadership. Controversial to get people to feel some kind of way that is not thought leadership. It should spark actual dialogue and it's meant to push conversations forward.
Speaker 1:But most of what I see today is safe, bland, inoffensive noise, sometimes moderately offensive Again, people just being intentionally pokey to get your attention and calling it thought leadership. But that's not what it is, because most people who create content are terrified of not being liked, so ultimately they're playing it safe, even when they're pretending to stand out there and be bold and brash and authentic and audacious and even I'm guilty of that right we all want to be approved of, especially in these online streets. But the bottom line is, ultimately, thought leadership makes you think about something you thought you already knew in an entirely different way, and true thought leadership requires a level of understanding on a topic or a niche that most people just do not have. Because, if I'm being intentionally controversial right now, the vast majority of people in the online space aren't even experts. They're parroting what their coach or some guru told them.
Speaker 1:Real thought leadership requires being able to see into the future, to see the possibilities of things and how they could change or don't change and what the outcome would be. It means having a unique point of view and consistently living in it. Real thought leaders are convicted to their perspective, their purpose and their beliefs. In a way, very few other people are. Their expertise and authority in a particular area makes them the sought-after person in the industry that everybody else turns to for guidance. Why? Because you lead with your thoughts. You lead with your thoughts around a topic. You lead with your thoughts around a topic. You lead with your thoughts around a particular specialization. And here's the thing if your message doesn't do that, it's not thought leadership.
Speaker 1:Thought leadership isn't supposed to be easy. It's not supposed to fit into a neat three-step formula. It's supposed to disrupt and provoke and stretch people's thinking. And when I say provoke, again, I don't mean intentionally controversial and pokey for likes and attention. So if you're not willing to be misunderstood, criticized or even called out not that that's a necessity, but that's what happens with a lot of genuine thought leaders, because they are thinking at a level that the rest of us really can't do, naturally we need them to come and disrupt our paradigms, so they are willing to be misunderstood, criticized and called out. And if you're not willing to do that, you're not thought leadership material, and I can't say it enough. It is not the same as being controversial or deliberately pokey. Now here's what pisses me off All of this fake thought leadership is clogging the space and it is making it harder for real visionaries to be heard, and I've talked about this on a previous episode.
Speaker 1:There are visionaries and there are dreamers, and too many people are actually dreamers, not visionaries. And women, especially women of color, are being coached out of their power, told to tone it down, make it more relatable, be more marketable. No, no, I'm putting my foot down. It stops now. If your ideas are too big for their frameworks, their frameworks are the problem. And while everyone else is busy playing the game, dancing for the algorithm, chasing virality, you are out here trying to say something real, something that matters. So let me say this loud and clear your voice does not need to be diluted to be heard. It needs to be sharpened to cut through the noise. If you're tired of watching mediocre voices dominate the conversation, calling themselves thought leaders, and all they're doing is just regurgitating the same bullshit as everybody else in their niche, while your vision sits on the back burner. I want you to hear something. Not everyone deserves a mic, but I know you do.
Speaker 1:And do not aim for thought leadership. You just need to start speaking to your ideas, get clear on what you believe and aim to become an expert, first, like a genuine expert, and then a genuine authority. That's it. That should be the goal. Do the work. Don't chase the title. Now I know you can aspire to be a thought leader. The title itself is ultimately granted to you. It's not something you claim, but you can do the work. That sets you up. That sets you up to be the go-to authority in your space, because that's what you want. You want to be an authority. You want to be the person that everybody in the industry looks to for guidance and for ideas and for vision. So I'm going to give you three quick things you can start doing today to start to grow as an authority in your space.
Speaker 1:The first thing is do not quote. Stop quoting people and instead aim to be quoted. What most people do is repeat something interesting or thought provoking that someone else has said and then talk around it. But from now on, if you hear someone say something or you see something a quote whatever that makes you go oh okay, don't write down what they said or what you read. Write down what it made you think about or how it made you feel. Then create content, because that is the easiest way to create original content that doesn't need attribution to someone else and then let people quote you. Now, having said that and thinking very much of the Mel Robbins scandal that's currently happening around her, let them book. If you do take someone's idea, please attribute them, because the reality is very few ideas are original enough that someone else hasn't thought of them first. So, yeah, if you see something that inspires you to create content around a different perspective of it, it's just the bigger thing to do to credit the original person who made you think that it's still original content for you. Right, your spin on it can still be original.
Speaker 1:Number two think about your industry, your niche, whatever, and what about it drives you absolutely batshit bananas. What's your take on it? When you share your opinions and, of course, those should be backed up by facts, because we're not out there doing fake news, bullshit when you share your opinions, you challenge the status quo, and that's what makes someone stand up and take notice. Right, that's what makes people go. Oh, wait, a second, she's actually saying something different, important, interesting. So here's what I want you to do I want you to take five minutes today and just think about what in your industry or niche drives you batshit crazy. Then I want you to post it to your favorite social media platform and tag me so I can share it. Okay, and number three and this one's the most important one Can you please validate your ideas with someone who knows how to be disruptive, like someone who's actually already disruptive in this space, not just someone in your friend group, not your coach or anyone at your workplace, because, as hard as this may be to hear, most people, most people will listen to what you want to say through the lens of their own fear and insecurity and will tell you oh, that's too controversial, that's too triggering, that's flat out crazy or that's wrong.
Speaker 1:They'll project their own fear and discomfort and envy onto your genius and they will probably bristle a little bit at the audacity that you have to want to say something like that, because the truth is, most people love the comfort and safety of being sheep. Most people are looking for approval rather than change, and you do not want to be a sheep. So dig into that inner dragon and find someone in your corner who can hold and support you through the inevitable fallout, the inevitable pushback, the inevitable hmm, wait a second that comes from being an authority, especially when you lead, disrupt and challenge thoughts, because that person will understand and they'll tell you when what you're actually saying is actually unique. So find that person to validate your ideas. That is super, super important.
Speaker 1:Now, this is a short and sweet episode, but I got really annoyed with how many people I'm seeing. There was a post the other day from somebody who was like do you consider yourself a thought leader? And honestly, I just was shocked at how many people were like yep, absolutely I do. Eh, no, do I consider myself a thought leader? No, not even close. But that's what I want you to take away from today's episode the more you seek likes, follows and approval, the less likely you are to truly share the thoughts that I know you have that are potentially paradigm shifting. And if that really is what you want safety, stability, comfort, you know, hey, no problem. Like, go for it.
Speaker 1:Like, not everyone is meant for thought leadership, not everyone is meant to be an authority. We need experts who are happy pushing along the status quo. But if that's not your idea of a good time, then start taking small steps in the direction of true authority. Do the work and if you do need support figuring it out, hey, book a session with me. My session is called Bitch, brainstorm and Boom. We spend 90 minutes getting really fucking clear on what you want. We start with 30 minutes of just brain dumping all of it out of your head. We spend the next 30 minutes making sense of things and organizing it in a logical manner and in the last 30 minutes we devise a clear plan of action for you. You get to figure out what exactly your expertise and authority is and we put a plan together for you to get there. It's only 350 bucks, it's the lowest price offer that I have and it's the easiest way to work with me, and it is the catalyst that's actually helping women take back their purpose and kickstart their momentum on a path they actually wanted to be on in the first place, because that's important too. You cannot be an expert authority or, one day, a thought leader if you're not doing what you're actually meant to be doing.
Speaker 1:If this episode hit a nerve or lit a fire, do me a favor Share it with someone who's ready to stop playing nice and start playing real. And remember just because it's common practice doesn't mean it's not complete bullshit. You can't have success without the BS. I will talk to you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and, if you're feeling extra sassy, rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblastfamipodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.